Information that traditionally has been distributed on physical media is now commonly distributed in electronic form via electronic networks. For example, information that has traditionally appeared in printed books, magazines, and newspapers, is now distributed electronically via the Internet and World Wide Web (“Web”). Home video games, which traditionally have been distributed using physical cartridges, compact disks (CDs), and/or digital video disks (DVDs), are now distributed electronically by services such as, for example, MICROSOFT® XBOXLive (www.xbox.com), that are accessible via the Internet. Similarly, music recordings, which traditionally have been distributed using CDs and other physical media, are now distributed electronically via Internet accessible services such as, for example, MICROSOFT® Zune Marketplace (www.zune.net). Indeed, entertainment content of all types—motion pictures, video games, photographs, music recordings, novels, articles, etc.—which traditionally have been distributed on physical media are distributed electronically via on-line services.
Existing on-line services typically download digital content to the electronic device from which the request for digital content was made. For example, when a gaming console user requests to download digital content from an on-line service, the requested digital content, which may be a game, video, music, etc., is downloaded to the gaming console from which the request was made. Similarly, when a media player user requests to download digital content, the data is downloaded to the media player associated with the request.
Different digital devices often embody different hardware and software for playing digital media content. For example, a portable media player may have a different codec, i.e., hardware/software for encoding and decoding digital data, for playing music and video than a gaming console. Similarly, two media players made by different manufacturers may have different hardware and software for playing digital content.
The hardware and/or software used in a device for displaying or playing digital content may require that the digital content that is to be used on the device be in a particular format. For example, a portable media player that has one codec may be adapted to play video recordings in a first format, e.g., MPEG-1, while a gaming console with a different codec may be adapted to play video recordings in another format, e.g. MPEG-2. Due to the variation in the hardware and software that exists on different devices, users of existing services typically specify the download format when requesting digital content.
Conventionally, on-line services for downloading digital content are for-fee services, i.e., users are required to pay for the content that they download. When a user downloads a digital content item to a particular device, he or she pays for that download. If a user downloads the content a second time to a different device, the user typically pays a second time.